Can anyone tell my why they add sugar in tin beetroot?
3 Likes
After I saw your post, I went to the pantry and retrived a can of Golden Circle Sliced Beetroot and checked the label.
Much to my amazement, the ingredients panel does list sugar, but even more disgusting is the statement that a former iconic Qld brand product is now âMade in New Zealand from local and imported productsâ, presumably not from Australia.
Considering that most of the UK grown sugar is produced from sugar beets, it seems incredible that beetroot would need added sugar.
I actually bought a small pack of Coles raw beetroot recently and cooked them and they were just as sweet as canned beetroot.
Perhaps one needs to question just where this âadded sugarâ beetroot is actually is grown and where it is actually processed.
4 Likes
To make them sweeter.
But seriously, I suspect to add back sugar lost through processing. Beetroot naturally contains around 7% sugarsâŠand some tinned Aussie beetroot has sugar added but sugar levels around 7%. The only reason I can see is to return sweetness lost in processing.
There are others which boost total sugar to 10%, which is more than natural levelsâŠpossibly these are unnaturally sweet.
We used Aussie tinned beetroot, but prefer fresh beetroots cooked at home. Steamed/boiled are not sweet as sugar is lost through cooking (juice departing the beet) and roasted ones are very sweet (sugar concentration increases as water is lost through baking).
There are other beets higher in sugar such as mangelwursel or fodder beets (8-14% sugar contentâŠwe are growing these for the first time to give them a go) and sugar beets (20% sugar and used for commercial sugar production in cold climates).
5 Likes
Not necessarily, different cultivars have different amounts of sugar.
2 Likes
I get grumpy with manufacturers that declare that and wonder why they are even legally allowed to say it.
Made in Australia from local and imported products
or
Made in <insert name of foreign country> from local and imported products
donât actually tell the consumer anything about the origin of the products.
So:
Made in NZ from crap-that-could-have-come-from-anywhere-in-the-world-so-we-are-only-giving-you-useless-information.
FTFY. 
Edited: extensively for clarity due to moderator concerns that my previous, terser post may have been taken as having a go at a forum member, which was not ever my intention.
4 Likes
I canât think why.
But because itâs added to the water, once you drain the liquid the amount of added sugar would not really make that much difference?
5 Likes
It could also be added to the water to maintain the sweetness of the beetroot. If plain water was used, it would draw sugar from the beetroot until such time the concentration in the water is similiar to the beetroot. Adding sugar to water would reduce this sugar movement occurring.
6 Likes
I agree, that makes sense! 
5 Likes
When one is used to not having sugar I find the tin beetroot is too sweet, so now I either cook my own or purchase the beetroot in the airtight plastic bags. The same with buying protein powder, they even add sugar (or a sweetner) , which I find is not necessary. surely people could add their own in they wanted it.
4 Likes
I also think they add sugar to get a consistent tasting product can after can. You buy one and years later you buy another but they both taste similar. In these types of food where cropped, variety, and fertilising and watering all make for a somewhat inconsistent product. To manage this inconsistency the cannery adds ingredients to keep a similar product across all their batches. They test for pH, sugar and a number of other characteristics and then add or reduce additives to suit the needed outcome.
Size of the beetroot is even important, once they get too large they are discarded, reason for this is that they want an even colour throughout the finished product and large beets tend to pale towards the centre, they also have to remove too much outer product to fit it in the normal cans (which also makes them pale). They address this by rejecting all oversized product before it even gets to the factory, ie it is left in the field to waste. Just checked and the optimum size for cannery production is 8 to 9 cm (6 to 7 cm are also accepted but may face a decrease in price paid), any larger they are rejected (often this also means they are woody, tough and often cracked on their surfaces). Smaller Beets can be accepted as they are often turned into pieces or baby beets.
7 Likes
Maybe made in New Zealand,grown where though,guess because i can.
3 Likes
Unfortunately this is endemic in tinned foods especially in Australia. I donât buy Australian tinned tomatoes for the very same reason. I expect tinned tomatoes (or beetroot) to contain tomatoes - thatâs it. Not half a ton of salt and sugar too. If Italian brands can go without salt and sugar with no loss of taste or quality, it must be because Australians like (and buy) sweet foods.
Canning is a preservative in itself, there is no need for âextrasâ in my opinion.
5 Likes
For anyone looking for canned tomatoes made in Australia, with no added sugars or salt, the Ardmona tomatoes claim to be:
100% Australian ingredients,
no added sugars or salt, no artificial colours or flavoursâŠ
7 Likes
There is naturally occurring sugar in beetroot as per the details below. I follow a ketogenic/low carb diet so this has too much fructose for me.
Nutrition Facts
Beets mainly consist of water (87%), carbs (8%), and fiber (2â3%).
One cup (136 grams) of boiled beetroot contains fewer than 60 calories, while 3/4 cup (100 grams) of raw beets boasts the following nutrients (1Trusted Source):
- Calories: 43
- Water: 88%
- Protein: 1.6 grams
- Carbs: 9.6 grams
- Sugar: 6.8 grams
- Fiber: 2.8 grams
- Fat: 0.2 grams
1 Like
Yes, Ardmona tinned diced and crushed tomatoes donât contain added sugar or salt, and havenât been made using illegal (âslaveâ migrant) labour which it is alleged that many Italian tomatoes growers do.
We have been using and supporting this Aussie grown product for many years,
Most of the store brand Australian tomatoes (Coles, Woolworths) also have no added sugar or salt as well.
5 Likes
The standard reason for most âadditivesâ that food processing companies shove into âfoodâ is to stimulate the salivary glands of consumers and encourage them to eat more of the product.
Thereâs a HUGE range of them. But they basically fall into 8 categories. Fat - sugar - salt - carbohydrates - artificial flavours - artificial colours - artificial preservatives - and artificial sweeteners. Most of which are quite unnecessary and donât constitute âfoodâ - itâs a straight âconâ.
As for where the food is sourced. Saying something comes from New Zealand could just as easily mean it arrived in New Zealand from anywhere else in the world and was simply packed in New Zealand, for forwarding to Australia.
If all else fails, these companies resort to tricks like ultra small print in lettering barely possible to differentiate from the background colour, so that deciphering their âcompulsoryâ disclosure is a virtual impossibility while shopping in a busy supermarket. And to call it âdisclosureâ is a misuse of the English language - they ought to be prosecuted for it!
A prime example is resorting to the use of the phrase âvegetable oilsâ, instead of disclosing WHICH oils the food contains. Some people have objections to different oils that this MIGHT refer to - and without specifying which oil, they simply have no way of knowing if the product is or isnât acceptable. Allowing it on the shelves is a failure on the part of Government. Allowing it on the shelves is a failure on the part of the supermarket chains to vet the âjunkâ they choose to flog to their customers.
Another one is using sodium content, to mask the salt content. The Heart Foundation has gone to great pains to inform us that NOBODY should consume more than â5 grams of saltâ in a day - and that people with a pre-existing heart condition should not consume more than â2 grams of saltâ in a day. How does it help any normal customer in a supermarket to decide if a product is acceptable or not, when the only disclosure relating to salt content is a statement of the number of milligrams of sodium per hundred grams of product? Surely if the Heart Foundation is correct, it should be mandatory for the disclosure required to be the number of grams of salt, per serve? Not this evasive and uninformative crap about mg of sodium?
FYI - practically every form of soup sold in Australian supermarkets today contains nearly 2 grams of salt per day. That means that a large percentage of the public canât have ANY further salt for 24 hours, if they eat one serve of this soup. And even young healthy labourers canât have more than another 3 grams of salt in everything else they eat after consuming one serve of this salt, during the following 24 hours.
This is NOT all about making money. Itâs about the health of our nation - and the burden on taxpayers and the entire community of overloading the health system with unnecessary problems because these manufacturers and supermarkets have such a cynical disinterest in the health and well being of their customers.
Which, when you think about it, is extremely dumb and stupid. Because if they kill off their customers, it will flatten their businesses. Iâd like to think I donât entrust my familyâs health and wellbeing to such stupid and irresponsible companies!
1 Like
Thank you for your info. We (the public) all seem to know about this but nothing is ever done about it. I hope that Choice can make a difference.
Australia is becoming more like America - (not a good thing). We canât believe, the newspapers (their stories are not always based on facts), we canât believe our politicians, (too many get away with trying to pull the wool over our eyes, and nothing is done about it). EG. What about the politicians who sold off our water to foreigners in the Murray Darling contract. Was anyone ever sacked or fined for that? The doctors have to prescribe whatever the Pharmaceutical Companies recommend, (mainly pain killers or drugs that have side affects) and this is mainly based on the best profits, or otherwise the Doctors can get fined. We have all been told that food is the best medicine, but doctors donât learn about that and nutritionists are not recognised under the Health Rebate Scheme. I have nearly been killed three times because doctors have not believed that I even had a pain. When my pain was finally proved by tests, they would not believe it was the drugs they had caused the pain. Even when they donât help us we still have to pay them. Sometimes one has to go to two or three different doctors before getting helpful advice and treatment. The politicians accepted their payrise after the Covid-19 had commenced, but refused anyone else payrises. There doesnât seem to be many ethics left in our leaders.
It is sodium which has long term health consequences, not salt. Salt also has non-sodium forms ([products](http://5g of salt (2000 mg of sodium)) containing potassium chloride is an example) as well and reporting salt only could create confusion or misleading.
In relation to salt (NaCl) to sodium conversion, the Heart Foundation has a calculatorâŠ
This page also shows the AHF reports both recommended maximum daily salt and sodium intake together, namely 5g of salt (2000 mg of sodium).
Edit: Watching the amount of salt added to foods is often the nutritional advice given by health and food agencies, as table salt (sea, rock, Himalayan and other products constituting sodium chloride/NaCl salt) is usually the main source of added sodium in the diet. Other forms of added sodium also occur, such as sodium bicarbonate/ baking soda, but the contribution of these sources are usually significantly less than table salt added by the consumer through salty foods/condiments or at the point of consumption.
3 Likes
Well then we get into the question of what is a serve. I have a son in law whose idea of a serve of anything bears no relationship to mine. There are so many different foods eaten in different amount by different people in different circumstances âa serveâ means almost nothing.
Reporting the weight of sodium is not crap because sodium from any sodium salt (eg sodium bicarbonate, baking soda) has the same effect on your body, common salt (sodium chloride) just happens to be the most common food seasoning so it is the one that health professionals target. So if you want to monitor your sodium intake accurately you have to do some sums and add up all the contributions from whatever size serving you have of each.
2 Likes
